No space to walk in Connaught Place, agencies show London dreams: Delhi HC

The Delhi HC, using Connaught Place as an example, said it is not against street vendors, but did not want “unreasonable crowds” due to them

The Delhi high court on Monday observed that the authorities intend to make the national capital akin to London even though there is no space for people to walk in Connaught Place due to street vendors and hawkers.

Street vendors in Connaught Place in Delhi. (HT Photo)

A bench of justices Vipin Sanghi and Jasmeet Singh, while hearing a bunch of pleas challenging the Street Vendors Act, 2014 said that it would look into the matter and hear arguments before passing an order.

The Act says that the Town Vending Committee shall conduct a survey of all existing street vendors within its jurisdiction and a subsequent survey shall be carried out, at least once in every five years.

“We talk about making it (Delhi) London, but how will we do that? You can’t even walk in Connaught Place as there are vendors occupying the space; it has become a business…”

“We will look into the challenge to the Street Vendors Act, 2014. We are willing to take the bull by the horns. If we find the Act to be alright, we will give a go-ahead; if we find shortcomings, we will give suggestions. We are not against street-hawking,” the bench said.

Expressing its displeasure on the encroachment by vendors in the Nehru Place market, the court said that the area has become like a slum.

“In Nehru Place, people can’t even walk as street vendors have made it their permanent place of business. We had to take suo motu cognizance of an incident of fire at Nehru Place.Condition of Nehru place market is like a slum. The need is to decide the number of vendors permissible in a particular area...” the court said.

It, however, added that street vendors belong to the lower strata of the society and the court is in no way against the vendors. It said that there should be a balance among the rights of hawkers, those who rent shops, and people who shop at markets.

“We all have grown up buying from street hawkers….We still go to kirana (grocery) shops, street food vendors for our day-to-day needs. We don’t go to malls for that. Nobody is against street hawkers…We just want the city to not be unreasonably crowded due to them,” the court observed.

Senior advocate Collin Gonsalves, for the impleaders, said that even though the Street Vendors Act, 2014 is a good legislation, it is not being implemented rightly.

He contended that the vendors are not issued Identity cards. He also said that a survey of the street vendors to be conducted under the Act of 2014 has not been done and the regulations of the Town Vending Committee are not properly followed.

Meanwhile, the bench also sought the response of the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) on a plea by the National Hawkers’ Federation. The hawkers’ body sought that they be heard when the court considers a plea by New Delhi Traders’ Association (NDTA) seeking the removal of vendors in the Connaught Place area.

On October 11, the court had directed the removal of the vendors without license and asked to put display boards in different parts of CP and Connaught circus.

The court said that the municipal body is doing “mere paper exercise” as the situation on ground is not changing and hawkers keep squatting illegally. The court said that the authorities are not actively pursuing the matter and not monitoring the movement of the unauthorized vendors.

The plea by the hawkers said that NDTA has given misleading information to the court which is affecting their rights.

The court fixed four days for hearing the matter: October 30, November 18, November 23 and December 8.